Liverpool 1 – 3 Aston Villa: That Was Anfield

What a piggish little game this was. You might have assumed that Liverpool’s first league defeat at home since 2007 would have been an exhibition of high drama, or at least of reasonable intensity, but the Kop was languid, the crowd left early, and the Liverpool players were fierce only in their complaints. Convinced early on that something was going against them, and mistaking Martin Atkinson—not unreasonably—for the will of the universe, they were wild, fell, and terrible in pleading their own case. But they forgot that football doesn’t care about arguments, and looked disgruntled and a little shellshocked whenever they stopped screaming at the referee for a few moments and tried to, you know, play.

There were two heroes in this match. One of them was Brad Friedel, for obvious reasons: the desperate hand to Torres’s header in the dying minutes of the game; the way he made Liverpool, who took three times as many shots as Villa, look like a guy playing ping-pong against the raised other half of the table. The other was the referee, who kept making the right calls, and kept getting berated for them by men in near-hysterics. By the end, Liverpool were so utterly out of ideas—no one following the attackers into the box, no clear sense whether the fullbacks were supposed to come forward, players standing around waiting for Ryan Babel to do his thing (i.e., miss) from 30 yards—that they were reduced to hauling down Aston Villa players whenever they got forward, then barking at Atkinson for whistling the blatant fouls. Skrtel looked genuinely incredulous when he was booked for what he had to know as he was committing it was a textbook bookable offense. Maybe he still couldn’t turn his head far enough to see what he was doing.

The worst moment, for Liverpool—and this is saying something in a match in which Steven Gerrard conceded a second-half penalty to put the match out of reach—was the end of the first half. There was a weird collective roar at Anfield, and a weird individual fury around Rafa Benítez and the Liverpool players, as though everyone in the place believed they’d been cheated because Villa scored 1:40 into what was supposed to be 1:00 of stoppage time. And of course everyone understands that fans and managers will always twist events to suit their team’s perspective. But there are moments when you have to swallow your bias, and one of those moments is when you legitimately concede a corner at the end of stoppage time, then watch your goalkeeper waste 45 seconds throwing a tantrum because he believes, incorrectly, that it should have been a goal kick. When you’ve just seen that happen, you don’t stand up and look at your watch. You certainly don’t stare in thwarted hatred at the referee after he finally blows for half time, and you don’t (as a team) melt down to the point that he waits to go into the tunnel until the furor has died down. This wasn’t quite Ballack doing his tight-marking-butterfly-of-Satan routine against Øvrebø last season, but there was also even less cause for it.

Villa, who were somewhat upstaged in victory by the petulance of their hosts, were earnest and competent, if not blazing with refined skill. Their defending was outstanding in the second half. Liverpool’s attack may have been clueless, but Cuéllar also stole a couple of their clues. Petrov, with his strange, staggering dribble, was tremendous. But all the talk about Villa’s demise was premature anyway, and now everyone will be saying so. Welcome to the Premier League, where for the first 10 weeks of the season you’re either in irremediable crisis or in ecstasy based on the score of your last match.

What a nasty game it was, though. Jamie Carragher, running around with a bandage cinched around his forehead like he’d just been stretchered off at the Somme; Fernando Torres with his purpling eye like a delicate Rocky Balboa; Skrtel hitching along like something out of Gormenghast, only turning to the left. It’s too early to say what this means for the season, of course, except maybe that it means the season has already gone a bit mad. (Man Utd falling to Burnley, Tottenham owning the table, Liverpool having lost in their first three games as many matches as they lost in 38 last year.) But if it were possible to extrapolate, I’d say Xabi Alonso is the European Footballer of the Year. And how desperately—even more than Villa, come to think of it—could they have used Gareth Barry in this match?

One more thing: If you were a Liverpool media coordinator, how frantic would you be to limit Rafa’s press exposure at this point? He goes on his anti-Ferguson “Fact” rant, and Liverpool immediately start dropping points; he lashes out against Lucas’s critics, and Lucas responds by scoring an own goal in the next game.

I don’t know, the Hollies may be overstating the case, but I think they have something to say about this:

Did you notice how often in the game Gerrard was dropping quite deep to try his hand at playmaking? Not that he accomplished anything, but there’s wasn’t anyone else to do it. (And it makes sense in other ways too: Gerrard’s accuracy decreases geometrically when he gets inside 30 yards. . . .)

Liverpool (especially Kuyt and Torres) seemed deeply offended that Villa was playing defense, and frequently begged Atkinson to make the bad people stop.

“By the end, Liverpool were so utterly out of ideas—no one following the attackers into the box, no clear sense whether the fullbacks were supposed to come forward, players standing around waiting for Ryan Babel to do his thing (i.e., miss) from 30 yards—that they were reduced to hauling down Aston Villa players whenever they got forward, then barking at Atkinson for whistling the blatant fouls.”

During the dying moments of the match and in the midst of my sixth beer something came out of my mouth that probably contained few actual words, but I’m convinced this is what my misfiring synapses were trying to express. I tend to mock the 3:16 sign carriers so early in the year, but if this isn’t a performance to make you read Revelation to see what’s next I don’t know what is.

Liverpool didn’t take their chances. Dirk Kuyt is not a world class player. You can’t win the prem fielding Lucas as a starting 11 player in your centre Midd.

Having said that your comments just go to show how shocked you all are at this result. It also goes to show how much we all rate Liverpool. Loosing 2 in 3 games is suicidal but there are 3 teams I’d never write off in the prem Chelsea ManU and Liverpool. I assure you THAT is our big 3 and for some reason I still think we are going to see more shocking results this season.

As for Liverpool wining the prem, I wouldn’t write them off as yet. Something I can’t say for Villa or Spurs sadly

liverpool were comical today. first laugh was at the black bandaging on Carragher’s head making him look a bit like a ninja, but it fell apart not too long into the game and it was downhill from there. second laugh was at the own goal by lucas on the freekick that he gave away i believe. last laugh was at gerard conceding the penalty that killed the game off. many chuckles inbetween.

Ray — You’re right, it was a shocking result, and it would be a mistake to write Liverpool off this early, particularly given that Man Utd haven’t had the best start to the year either. I think the Big Four are all going to lose some games this season. The one thing that’s plain from this, though, is that Liverpool have some large problems they’ll need to address (Kuyt is one of them, but then he has been for the last three seasons) if they want to get back on track. I think the problems are worse than anyone anticipated, which is why the result yesterday felt like a surprise but not like a fluke.

I think Liverpool’s chances of winning the league have already been severely damaged. They’ve lost more in the first three games of this season than they did all of last, and they’ve still got to head to places like Old Trafford, the Emirates, Stamford Bridge, Goodison Park… I’d even say the City of Manchester stadium will become a formidable place to go by the end of the year.

Arsenal’s Invincibles and Chelsea’s two wins under Mourinho rose the bar so high that you now need around 85 points just to get into the top two, closer to 90 to actually win it. I can’t imagine Liverpool, as they are at the minute, not struggling at these difficult grounds and also being surprised by the defensive tenacity of lower table teams.

A fit Aquilani will go some way to healing the open wound of Alonso’s departure, but everyone knows the main thing Liverpool lack is a decent back-up striker to Torres who can come off the bench and truly change a game like last night’s. They had one in Robbie Keane, but forced him out after only six months.

P.S. A quote I found on Liverpool fan forum Red and White Kop last night (yes, I admit that I am one to partake in Schadenfraude):

‘O well done Oneil your a team aiming for top 6 and you park the bus. What a fucking disgrace.’ And yet they won 3-1 at Anfield? That sounds like a pretty good tactic to me, especially when everyone knows Villa are best soaking up pressure using 4-5-1 and using the sheer pace of Young, Agbonlahor and Milner to counter-attack.

P.P.S. An interesting article on David Villa’s predicament this summer:

Liverpool, a comedian on every corner and a tragedy just around it. Barely is the black armband out of the spin drier from the last one than it’s time to put it on again.
…
We are Liverpool, our characters hewn from hard labour over the centuries, from working in the slave trade, to forming Beatles-type moptop bands to selling hooky Fila tops around the pubs where working men stand tall at the bar and drink with pride. We are Liverpool. You do not do this to us. So why do you keep doing it?

You know, I was just going to post a wingco-esque “that’s why we’re Liverpool, and you’re not” in response to “You certainly don’t stare in thwarted hatred at the referee after he finally blows for half time, and you don’t (as a team) melt down to the point that he waits to go into the tunnel until the furor has died down.” I’m a poster at that board, and wingco’s occasional character posts are brilliant.

Hold on – Kuyt is still a problem? As a defensive forward to works to shutdown oppostion fullbacks, thereby reducing their attacking width and forcing play into the congested middle, where the ball is easily lost I think he does a pretty good job. Especially considering he scored 12 league goals last season, making him the top scoring winger behind a certain dear-departed Portuguese (perversely, Ronaldo’s sheer hatability made me genuinely love the guy), equalling Rooney’s efforts and humiliating Young’s 7, Lennon’s 5 and Walcott and Pienaar’s mighty 2. Also he equalled Young as the highest assist-provider out of that group.

While it’s hardly the standard Liverpool fan claim of ‘lazy journalism’ and ‘pro-Manchester media bias’ (the less said about jigsaws the better) I don’t get how people can seriously claim that he’s poor. Also, the aftermath of a 3-1 beating is hardly the ideal time to claim this; but does anyone else think that Young is little more than a pacey Downing (or Marlo Stansfield)? 9 assists is pretty good, but in a team with Carew and Heskey up front?

Marlo Stanfield I’ll give you. Kuyt I find poor, or poorish, because whatever his virtues as a defensive forward, as an attacking one he seems to spend most of every game popping up a split second too late to get on the end of a good pass, missing an easy shot, or expending enormous effort to head the ball straight to the goalkeeper. A decent player on a stacked team like Liverpool can get 12 goals without being really outstanding, and Kuyt—no denying this—has a sensational work ethic. But the fact that of his 14 goals in all competitions last season, eight of them came against Standard Liege, PSV Eindhoven, Wigan, Bolton, Hull and Newcastle doesn’t exactly convince me that he’s an attacking force. Robbie Keane’s stats were better before they got rid of him.

For that matter, Peter Crouch was the team’s leading scorer in ’06-’07 and got 11 goals and five assists in 18 games the next season, and he wasn’t good enough for Liverpool, so Rafa presumably would agree that stats don’t tell the whole story…

Oh man – completely out-researched. Although in the Liege game, Liverpool had struggled through 207(?) minutes before managing to break them down and in the Wigan (and City) game it was as a crucial part of a 3-goal comeback that seems painfully missing so far this season.

I get the ‘just too late’ thing – the last memory I have of the Villa game before I neatly stored it away in a little locked box for some future Freudian to find is of him just scraping at the end of a cross in front of an open net. I don’t buy that someone with an extra modicum of pace or slightly better finishing ratio would be scoring 30 a season though. I can’t think of anyone who could be brought in to do a better job without seriously destabilising the team (although recent events would suggest a change in fabric softener would destabilise Liverpool to the point of imploring high-pitched speech from Gerrard), given that Ji-Sung Park his closest equivalent in terms of defensive play is light-years behind him in attack.

Kuyt’s ability to win the ball into the final third and feed Torres/Gerrard/uhhh… is vital to Rafa’s whole next gen Arrigo Saachi thing. Ball winners all over the pitch (shooting from distance may not have been a prominent feature of his 25 metre game). It’s all part of the dutch philosophy that gave the world Cruyff; this is merely the other side of the looking-glass.

Much as I liked him, I think Crouch was sold because he was never going to be first choice when Torres was available, and he wasn’t happy to be a backup… Although for all I know, maybe Rafa just thought he looked weird.

George — Still, it’s that uhhhh… that’s the problem, isn’t it? Ball winners all over the pitch is great in theory, but when even your forwards are primarily ball winners, you start to wonder, to be totally crude about it, who the ball receivers will be. Kuyt’s kind of supposed to be one thing and kind of supposed to be the other, and while he’s definitely a better attacker than Park (who’s not nearly as important to Man Utd’s overall season-long scheme, however), I personally think they’d be better off losing his defensive prowess and gaining an extra wisp of danger in the attack.

I say that despite keenly remembering that this is a team that beat Real Madrid, Man Utd, and Aston Villa 13-1 in one three-game stretch last season. Clearly they’re fearsome when they’re firing, it’s just that they don’t fire as consistently as they could, and the -Xabi +Voronin math isn’t going to make them more creative. (I’m not even sure that shouldn’t be two minus signs, in a way.) Maybe Aquilani will be the answer. But then, to beg the question while simultaneously simplifying it, why should we expect a team that plays a defensive midfielder in a forward/winger position to score lots of goals reliably?

Anyway, what it probably all comes down to is that I don’t really believe in the next-gen Sacchi philosophy (especially not if it leads to Rafa being supplanted by a next-gen Mijatović). Kuyt may be an ideal exemplar of it—I certainly appreciate him more after this exchange—but I still wish Rafa would throw someone up front who could fly at the defense rather than just exert, frustrate, and repeat, even if it meant scrambling his sytem. I always liked it when Crouch played with Torres, and wanted to see that more.

I get what you mean about having a faster more dynamic attack, but to replace Kuyt with someone who won’t track back or battle for the ball, all attacks have to build from the very back which only means more time for the attack to break down. Also, since we’re now without Alonso there’s no one to keep calmly playing the ball forward – and while Mascherano’s inability to pass is greatly exaggerated, both him and Lucas are very skittish on the ball. Without Xabi (who stats-wise was poor at both attacking and defending) a chasm grows across the middle of the pitch leaving Torres on his own looking useless, and Stevie to metaphorically hurl himself down it in a heroic anti-climax.

Voronin is never going to be the answer to a question not graffitied on cubicle walls; I like Lucas (though he tests me), I invent little sympathies and mitigations when he costs us, as I magnify the mistakes of O’Shea who I have developed a largely baseless hatred for (no, I don’t know why). I’ve mentioned the phrase “Boula d’Ouro” hundreds of times recently, but still can’t feel anything other than contempt for the Ukranian. I don’t know if this reveals more about me or him.

Two out and out strikers is always going to be a problem at Liverpool when you have Gerrard who doesn’t play particularly well at central midfield, but excels in a more advanced position. While occasional last-gasp tackles are important to his cult of leadership (despite the tone of this, I do absolutely love the guy) regular defensive toil isn’t. Giving less technically skilled players more defensive duties allows the attackers greater freedom to roam, making the team more offensive through meritocracy. Whether Kuyt is Ringo or just there to set the stage is arguable, but he is an important part of the show.